


Give Allspark to Megaron (with AI Dungeon)

by mydarksidelovesthis



Category: AI Dungeon 3 (Video Game), Transformers (Bay Movies)
Genre: Collaboration with AI Dungeon, Gen, I guess the AI has no idea and wants me to decide but no, Megatron wants something but doesn't say what it is, Reader is Sam Witwicky, epic quest to save the Transformers
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2021-01-09
Updated: 2021-01-08
Packaged: 2021-03-12 22:33:57
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Major Character Death
Chapters: 5
Words: 21,699
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/28643013
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/mydarksidelovesthis/pseuds/mydarksidelovesthis
Summary: Okay, it was a mistake. You didn't know that beside humanity experimenting on Megatron and stealing the Allspark from the Transformers you had accidentially destroyed Cybertron. Mistakes happen.





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> Dear Reader,
> 
> I read about those AI Dungeon thingy, especially the praise about the GPT-3 Model, called "Dragon". Then I thought: Hey, what if Sam gave Megatron the Allspark in Mission City and let the AI play out his reaction.
> 
> I decided to share it with you in case you want to see how a story with AI Dungeon can look like. As a bonus service I highlighted my inputs in bold, so you can see me struggling when I try to get answers out of it. (Though I marked them retrospective and might not remember correctly so take it with a grain of salt.)
> 
> Kind regards,  
> My Experimenting Side Loves This

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Sam gives Megatron the Allspark and ... the leader of the Decepticons asks for help? Kinda.

**You are Sam, a totally normal human boy. You are running through the streets of Mission City, the precious Allspark in your hands. Megatron, the leader of the Decepticons, is after the Allspark and follows you. In the streets of the city the human soldiers and the Autobots fight against the Decepticons.** The humans have been transformed into mindless killing machines by their transformation chamber. They kill each other with no thought for life or death, they just want to be rid of these Transformers!  
**You welcome that distraction, so you only have to deal with one robot that follows you. Megatron commands you to stop and tries to reach you in the middle of the battle.** But you keep running through the streets. Suddenly you see something in front of you, it's a human girl...  
"Hey there! I was looking for you! Where are you going?" she asks.  
**You say: "No time to talk. I need to reach that building over there before Megatron kills me."**  
You show the AllSpark to the girl.  
"What's that?" she asks.  
**You hear Megatron's angry shouting behind you and his stomps that shake the ground. You ignore the girl and run to the building with the white statues on the roof.** If you survive this day, that will be themoment you remember.  
You think that if you only had a gun...  
**... that gun would be totally useless against the giant robot that follows you. You enter the building. In the middle of the big hall you stop, waiting for Megatron to come in.** He does. He reaches out his arm and stops when he is standing right before you. You can see his angry eyes glowing red behind his mask.  
**You say: "Megatron, I'm so sorry for what humanity did to you. It was totally wrong to keep you imprisoned in cryostasis for so long, experimenting on you and stealing your technologies. Maybe you can never forget what we did." You raise the cube with the Cybertronic symbols on them above your head. "Please, take the Allspark, which is the rightful property of your species. Please, leave Earth in peace." You await the reaction of the giant robot.**  
He takes the cube with his free hand. He stares at you with his angry red eyes and you stare back. Nobody says anything, but it feels like eternity has passed when he finally... nods.  
**You sigh in relieve. "Now I just go back home, okay?" you say.**  
"No." says the robot. You do not understand. Maybe he needs time to learn the English language?  
**You say: "I gave you the Allspark. What else do you want from me?"**  
"You no go home." he says.  
"Why not? Did you want to kill me?"  
The robot nods.  
A shiver goes down your spine, but you force yourself to remain calm.  
**You say: "Please, I gave you the Allspark. Optimus will be angry at me, but I did it anyway, because I think it was the right thing. Also I apologized for humanity. I know that doesn't make it right what we did to you, but that's all I can do for you. Please, I'm only sixteen and have all my life ahead of me. Just let me go home and live a normal, boring life like every boy my age does."**  
The angry red eyes glow brighter. The robot does not like your begging. But there is something else, a flicker of something else in the red glow of the eyes.  
**You try to read on his eyes, trying to understand what he wants.**  
Maybe he wants to kill you and that is the only thing he wants. Maybe it's too late for him, maybe he is gone, too far gone into rage, hate and mindless violence to be brought back.  
**No, it cannot be. You're sure there is a way to turn everything the good. If he would want to kill you he would've already done it. You need to find out what it is that makes him angry and what you can do about that. "What can I do?" you ask. "Do you want me to negotiate an apology of my government for you treatment? I don't have any influence, but I would see what I can do if that's what you want."**  
"No." says the robot.  
**What can it be? What is it that makes him angry? You try to remember the conversations you had with the other humans, about why the Decepticons were angry.  
First there was your grandfather Archibald Witwicky, who found Megatron in the ice. Then there were the Sector 7 agents who brought him into their lab, experimented on him and probably did a lot of other cruel stuff. And then there were you who ran away with the Allspark. At least you undid your part by giving him back the Allspark, but the other crimes yet do be payed back. "It's because of those experiments, isn't it?" You ask. "I had nothing to do with them."**  
"No." says the robot.  
Ach, there must be something. You must've done something to him, even if you don't remember it. Maybe you should lie?  
**But lying would not help as long as you don't know what to lie about. "Just tell me what I did to you" you ask. "I've never met you before, so I don't know what you're getting at."**  
"You don't remember?" ask the robot.  
"No, I'm sorry."  
The robot lowers his head and closes his eyes. "So it seems you lived a life free of my torment."  
**And then it hits you. All those video games you were playing. Where they secretly connected to Megatron? "When you were in cryostasis, were you noticing what was happening around you?" you ask. "Did they connect you to the internet? Did I meet you in some video game?"**  
He opens his eyes again and raises his head. "Yes. Yes. And yes."  
You smile.  
**In the next moment you frown. Now you need to find out which video game out of the hundreds you've ever played it was where you met Megatron. And which character he was there. Well, you have to start somewhere. "Which was it?" you ask and start to name video games that come to your mind. "World of Warcraft? Legend of the Green Dragon? Neverwinter Nights?"**  
"About a year and a half ago, I saw you playing an online role-playing game called Belgaroth Attacks - the Empire of the Forsaken", says the robot.  
**Ah, now you remember. That was a cool game where you were traveling between planets in a space ship and completed missions. The game had a lot of cool planets to discover. One of the planets consisted of giant metal bars in a honeycomb-like structure, a planet that was struck by a civil war between its robot inhabitants. You shudder when you realize that the planet resembled the pictures Optimus has shown you about Cybertron. Was it possible that the developers had included Cybertron in a video game?**  
During the course of the game, you had to stop an attack of the planet by the inhabitants of another planet. These inhabitants resembled giant bugs and slime mold. They were planning to conquer other planets for their own purposes.  
**However, things were not going as you had planned to do. You had killed some of the giant bugs and found a way to build a barrier that stopped the slime mold, saving Cybertron at least. But some of you rockets had missed the bugs and hit Cybertron instead - you didn't see exactly where, because you were too high up in space. Also you had highly damaged one of Cybertron's moons with your actions.**  
"Yes, I remember it now. I didn't know the rocket would hit the moon, though. That was a miss."  
The robot stares at you in disbelief.  
**"And you were there, too, on that virtual Cybertron? That's ... amazing." You start to stutter when you realize how it must have been for him to see you causing all that damage to his home world, because it was just a game for you and you didn't care.**  
"That's great," you say. "Can I go now?"  
"You didn't seem to care much about the damage you did", says the robot and walks away from you.  
**"I'm sorry" you call after him. "I will log back into the game and repay the damage. As soon as I'm back home I will try to find my password. I will play for the next weeks nonstop until I paid for all the damage."** The robot now turns slowly back to you. "You don't get it, do you? This world was my home. My real home."  
"I'm really sorry" you repeat.  
**"But ... but you can rebuild it now that you have the Allspark?" You ask. "Everything will become right, won't it?"**  
"Will it?" he asks back. "I have seen that movie, too. I know it has a happy end, but it requires sacrifices."  
"Yeah, but you're the good guy.  
**"I will sacrifice all of my freetime to work up for the damage" you suggest. "I will sacrifice the rest of my childhood for that game. Even the weekends and holidays when I'm on the college. Cybertron will be so rich that you can repair all the damage and buy yourself a spare moon."  
You head to the door to leave back to your home as you have promised, seeing if Megatron reacts to your leaving.** To your surprise he doesn't, he just paces slowly back and forth in the room.  
You reach the exit and press down the button to open the door, but nothing happens.  
**You grab the door handle and pushes it down to ope the door.** Still nothing happens. You bang against the door in anger, but it still stays closed.  
"What's the matter?" asks the robot when he hears you banging against the door. "It doesn't work"  
**"Well, no problem" you say. How odd, as you've just come in through this door minutes ago. Instead you head to the window. "Then I will just climb out. Don't worry about me. I will start to replay the game and repair the damage to Cybertron as soon as possible."** He stares at you with a confused face and asks you to repeat what you just said. "You will replay the game and repair the damage?"  
**"Yes" you reassure. "I will log back in to Belgaroth Attacks - the Empire of the Forsaken, where I had caused all that damage to Cybertron. I will pay for the damage, Cybertron gets repaired, everything will be fine. Isn't it what you want?"**  
He seems to understand you, but you still can't comprehend why he would let you out then. It's apparent that the button doesn't work, so you're stuck here.  
**"Well, the door seems to be broken" you state like the dumbest realization of the century. "Guess I have to head for the roof then." Surely there's still a helicopter waiting on the roof for you. They will be disappointed that you gave the Allspark to Megatron, but they won't leave a civilian here, would they?** You giggle a bit about how they would lower a rope for you, so you can escape.  
"What are you talking about?" asks the robot. "There is no helicopter here."  
**"We'll see about that." You head to the stairs that lead to the next floor.** There is still a faint light here. "I think, I will escape this building through the roof. The helicopter will be there to pick me up. So, don't you worry about me."  
**You go up the stairs, slowly to check if Megatron reacts to your leaving.** Nothing happens. You turn around to wave at him, but he's gone.  
**You reach the next floor and head for the door.** That's strange, it's starting to get dark outside. How can that be?  
**Behind the next door you reach a staircase that leads to the roof. After a long climb you reach the roof out of breath. You look around the city to check how the battle between Autobots and human soldiers on one side vs. the Decepticons on the other side had turned out. Or if they had stopped now that Megatron posessed the Allspark.  
The city is dark and quiet now. Did you really talk to Mgatron for hours? It didn't seem that long. But just as he said there is no helicopter waiting here for you and there is no other way down, so you climb down the stairs back to the main hall.**  
Back in the main hall, you notice that the door you had been trapped in is now wide open. Maybe someone came by and freed you?  
Then you see who else is in the room.  
**It got dark in here as well, so you step closer to make sure you see that other person right.**  
"Dad?" The man looks very tired and he is lying on the floor.  
You run to him and shake him, calling his name, but he doesn't react at all.  
**"Oh my god, Dad!" You panic. You try to remember what you learned in the first-aid-course, but you forgot everything. You want to reach for your phone to call for help, but it's not there - you gave it away when you were in the lab. So you run outside to call for other people to help your Dad.**  
"Please, somebody help!" You yell at two humans that run past you. They don't even look at you. "Please, my Dad is dying in there!" Finally they stop and turn to you.  
**Still wondering how your Dad got there you repeat: "My Dad needs a doctor, please call am ambulance."**  
"We can't do that" one of the men says. "We can't let anyone know we're here. Then we'd have to go into hiding again. Look, we can't help you."  
**"Then just give me a phone" you suggest with a bit of anger that those people would let your Dad die just to save themselves from whatever. "I need a phone just for two minutes to call an ambulance. Nobody will know you were here."**  
The men look at each other and then one of them reaches into his pocket.  
"Here." He hands you a cheap looking mobile phone.  
**You sigh in relieve. "Thanks man, you're the best." You use the mobile phone to call an ambulance for your Dad.** While it dials you wonder why the men ran.  
When someone answers you're about to ask for an ambulance but then you hear a loud explosion coming from inside the building.  
**You turn around when a cold shiver of fear runs down your spine. "Dad!" You run to the building to check if he is fine.**  
"Wait!" You hear one of the men behind you, but you keep on running.  
When you enter the building again everything is dark and destroyed. "Dad?"  
**You make your way over debris on the ground, coughing from the heavy dust in the air, running to the place where you last saw your Dad.**  
"Dad!" You find him lying on the ground, bleeding from his head. "Dad, wake up! The building just blew up and the ambulance is on its way!"  
Your Dad slowly opens his eyes.  
**"Can you get up?" you ask and grab your Dad below his arms. "We need to get out of here. I don't know how stable the building is after the explosion."  
Your Dad mumbles something. You start to drag him towards the door.** "What?"  
"I said: It wasn't the explosion." Your Dad's voice sounds really tired and his eyes are barely open. "It was a Decepticon...  
**You shudder. Why would they do that? You gave Megatron the Allspark and promised to repay the damage you did to Cybertron, so what reason was left to hurt your Dad? What else do they want?  
"Dad! The ambulance will arrive any second, just hold on!"** You see that your Dad's chest is slowly rising and falling. He is alive. But for how long?  
**"Megatron, why did you do that?" you shout into the room, hoping that he hears you. "You agreed to leave Earth in peace!"**  
You hear a quiet rumble of a deep voice from above you. When you look up you see a dark shadow hovering in the air.  
**You look closer, trying to make out what it is.**  
"You called me, little All-be-loser? What is it that you want?" You hear the same voice ask. It sounds sarcastic and mean.  
**"I asked you to leave Earth in peace and you agreed" you complain. "Why did you hurt my Dad? Is this how peace looks like to you?"**  
"Ah, little one, but this is not Earth." The shadow seems to move closer to you.  
**"No?" You look around. You arrived with the Allspark in Mission City. You've been on Earth for your whole life. Where else would you be?**  
"You're in the middle of a war. A war for the future of the Universe. And you are so close to victory, yet so far at the same time." The shadow seems to be circling around you.  
**"Where am I if this is not Earth?" you ask.**  
"You're in the middle of a city on my home-world, Cybertron. Your arrival on this planet is what started this final battle." The shadow stops circling and you hear a loud snapping sound.  
**You cannot remember how you got here, also this still looks like Earth to you. You look at the shadow, awaiting further explanations.**  
"I need your help and this is the only way I could get it." The shadow says.  
**"How could I be of help to you?" you wonder. "I'm just a kid. I can barely tie my own shoes."  
You add: "You're Megatron, leader of the Deceptions, a giant battle robot. Member of an advanced intelligent robot species. I doubt there is anything any human could do better than you."**  
The shadow laughs at you for a long time. Then it answers: "Ha! That is so true!"  
You feel anger rising. "What?"  
"I said: That is so true!"  
**"Then why do you need my help? What do you want from me?" You demand an answer.**  
"I am Megatron, the leader of the Decepticons, an advanced intelligent robot species. I doubt there is anything a mere human could do better than me." The shadow says in a mocking tone.  
**Confusion mixes into your anger. You check on your Dad and listen if the ambulance arrives soon.** Then you go back to the shadow and say: "Are you calling me a liar?"  
"A liar, a hero, a fool. It depends on perspective." The shadow says and laughs again.  
**"Well, if you're not a little bit more clear about your intentions, I don't see how I would even have the chance to cooperate." You say, trying to ignore his laughs. "What do you want from me?"**  
"I already told you. I need your help." The shadow says.  
**"Then tell me how I can help" you demand to know. "What do you want from me?"**  
"I don't know how to put this..." The shadow seems hesitant. Then it says, as if giving in to a secret: "I am dying."  
**You stay silent for a moment. Megatron is dying? Is it your fault? And what could you do about that. You consider to express your empathy, but instead you say the most stupid thing you could say in this moment. "That sucks."**  
"No, that entirely depends on your perspective." The shadow says.  
You roll your eyes and say "Great, I'm dying and this robot is mocking me. I don't have time for this."  
**You check back on your Dad, still waiting for the ambulance. How long does that dumb amulance take to get here? You don't know what else to say. Megatrons contrasting behavior, telling you he dies on one hand while mocking you on the other, confuses you.** You have nothing in common with him. You don't want to have anything in common with him.  
The shadow seems disappointed by your answer.  
**"By the way" you ask. "Why are you hanging around as a shadow?"  
When the shadow doesn't answer, you wonder if he had already died. Worrying you check your Dad's pulse. The ambulance hasn't arrived yet and you get the feeling that it will never come. You head towards the city center.**  
The shadow calls after you: "I can help you!"  
You turn to him: "You can help me? How? **You ask: "Please, can you help my Dad? And then I can help you with whatever you want from me?"  
When the shadow doen't answer, you make a fist of anger and sadness. You take that as a no. "That is not fair. He has done nothing wrong. Why did you do that, why? Damn it, you could've just asked for my help instead of this shit." You're fighting back your tears.**  
The shadow laughs again: "So dramatic."  
**"If you don't want to help, just leave us alone, will you." You grab a piece of debris and throw it at the shadow.** It hits the shadow and dissapears.  
"That won't help you." The shadow says.  
**You ignore him and turn to your Dad. "Dad, do you hear me?" You're shaking him softly and take his hand. "Everything will be alright, you hear me? I love you, Dad."**  
After waiting a little while, you start pushing the debris aside to look for something to lift him with.  
The shadow says: "I could help your Dad. But you'll have to help me first."  
**"Well, I'm asking your for like half an hour how I can help you" you snap at him. "But you never answer, so I don't see how that could happen." You wipe off your tears with your sleave and try to be strong.** You really don't want to leave your Dad behind.  
"Think about it: if I wanted to help you, I could just take your Dad with me to the afterlife." The shadow says.  
**"I want my Dad with me and alive" you cry. You think about what it could be Megatron would need your help for. Maybe there is anything only a human can do, but a machine cannot. What could that be?  
Well, you're made from flesh, he's made from metal. Maybe you can access a place he cannot or you can touch an item that would corrode his metal.  
Or is it something about the human brain? The human brain works differently from a machine's processor. Maybe Megatron needs him to do something only a biological brain is capable of.  
You check the vital functions of your Dad.** He's still breathing weakly. You can't really do an ECG on him here, but you take his pulse. It's really weak, and his skin is cold.  
**You cannot stand the thought of losing your Dad. "Please" you beg the shadow. "Save my Dad. I will do anything you want, just don't let him die."**  
The shadow laughs. "You're willing to do anything I want? That's a funny way of saying you don't care about my demands."  
**"Just screw you" you shout at him in anger. "If you don't want my help, fine, then just continue to mock me. I'm really out of options here." The tears are back. You turn your face away from the shadow when hot wet drops run down your cheeks, in hope he won't see it.**  
You stand there in the darkness, broken by the devastating news. You don't know what to do. The shadow's silence is louder than all of the chaos around you. There is no hope left.  
**You knee down beside your father to accompany him and to ease him as long as he needs.  
You hold your father's hand. There's still some life in him. No, you cannot give up just yet. "If you don't want to help, fine", you tell the shadow. "Then I will get some help somewhere else." You head to the door.**  
"He's dying, you fool. No one can help him now."  
You freeze in your steps and just stare at the shadow.  
**"Screw you" you tell the shadow and go outside to retrieve help anyway. At least you do something instead of just sitting there and waiting for your father to die.**  
You run up the road until you find a house with its lights on. "Help!" You yell several times before the light finally turns on inside and the front door opens.  
**"My father is dying and needs a doctor!" you call out before the door is fully open and you see who is standing there.** It's the one who shouted at you before and threatened you with a gun. He didn't listen back then and doesn't listen now. He just watches you while he resumes his shouting.  
**You lift your hands to show you're unarmed. "Wow, wow, let's just keep cool here, won't we? I was just looking for a doctor. I can continue my search with the next house, no problem."** What? Does this guy think you want to get into his house?  
Well, that's exactly what he thinks. He pulls the trigger and the bullet hits you in the chest and you fall back.  
**You lie there bleeding on the sideway and you think: Oh shit, now not only your father dies, but you're dying as well. You should've stayed by your father's side. Now your poor Mom will be all alone.  
While the red life liquid leaks out of you, you see the shadow, who is Megatron, approaching.** You look into his eyes and they are cold and merciless. You see him lift his foot and press it onto your chest.  
"I'm sorry", he says.  
**You want to ask him to not do it, but the bullet has hit your lungs and you cannot speak.** You feel a sharp pain in your chest and you cough blood. It doesn't take long until your vision fades to black and your life ends.  
**To your surprise you wake up. After you remember how Megatron has killed you you look around where you are and what has happened.**  
You are sitting at a campfire. Beside you is your father and next to him Mom. They seem to be asleep. You look around and see that you're in a forest clearing.  
**How is that possible? Was it all just a dream? But it felt so real. Anway, you're just happy to see your parents again. You rush to them with a hug, waking them up from their sleep. "Mom, Dad, I love you." You say as if you hadn't seen them for years.**  
They look at you a bit puzzled, but then they return the hug. "Son, what's gotten into you? I thought you were dead." Your father says.  
**You laugh madly, not daring to say how you though the same of him. "Nothing, just a bad dream I guess" you say.**  
"Hmm, well I'm glad we're together again." Your father says and gives your mother a kiss.  
You smile while watching them.  
**You remember how Megatron told you that he needs your help, but didn't say how yet. You push the thought aside. "Well", you say, pointing to the black night sky with its stars. "It's already late and we're all tired. Let's go to sleep in our tents." You stand up and go to yours.** When you open it and enter, you see that it isn't the one you set up but a much nicer one.  
**You leave the tent to ask your parents: "Mom, did you replace my tent? What is it?" You point to the inside. "Why is there a TV in it and a microwave and all that stuff? I mean, it's cool and comfortable and all, but isn't the point in camping to have less comfort?"**  
They both look at you puzzled. Your father says: "But son, that's your tent. We didn't replace it or get you a new one. What the hell are you talking about?".  
**You stare at them for a moment, not comprehending, then you decide to just play along. "Eh, nevermind. I'm just confused from the nightmare I guess." You just step into the tent and go to bed.** Maybe your stressed mind just plays tricks on you and you just didn't remember you had such a nice tent.  
Maybe you just dreamed the whole thing.  
**Dream, that's it. Are you dreaming? You pinch yourself to see if it hurts.  
It doesn't hurt. So this is not real, this is just a dream. Where are you? How do you get out of here?**  
You try to find a way out but there is none. You are stuck in the void between dream and reality, two worlds that you can't tell apart anymore.  
You watch them for a while.  
**So Megatron did really kill you and now you're at this strange place. Everything was real. But where is he now? Is he in this world, waiting somewhere for you? Is the watching you from the outside? Does he care at all? You wait in your tent until you hear the loud snoring of your Dad. Then you sneak out and start to search through the forest for any clue that helps you to find answers.**  
You go through the forest and find something. A huge, black claw reaches out of the ground and grabs you before you can react and pull you underground. Down in the darkness you go.  
**You find yourself in the pitch blackness, the cold black metal claws still closed around your body, holding you tight. In the darkness two glowing red eyes open and look down on you.**  
"Ah, the traitor returns. I thought I smelled a weakling. I guess you're here to beg for your wretched life." The cold voice almost makes you shiver.  
**Almost. "What are you talking about? You already killed me." You struggle against the grip. "Let go of me."  
But he doesn't answer and the grip stays tight. "Also I don't know when I betrayed you" you add.**  
The grip suddenly tightens. "Liar. We were friends, brothers even. Then you decided to leave and joined our enemies. That's not something you forget.  
**You look at him in confusion. "Who are you?"**  
The creature throws you on the cold ground. You fall on your back and see him towering over you, looking like a nightmare made real.  
**You scream and roll to the side, trying to escape, but in the darkness you hit your head on a stone and fall back to the ground, holding your forehead in pain.** You look up just in time to see him swing his sword and cut of your hand. It doesn't hurt much, just like a pinch. But still, you scream and the creature laughs at you.  
**You stare at the stump of your wrist in disbelieve, when hot red blood flows out. This is not real, you say to yourself. This is just a dream. Nothing of this is real. Megatron is just playing some tricks on your mind.**  
The creature jumps on you and holds you down. "This is no dream, traitor. This is iron and blood. This is the world as it is."  
You stare at him through the darkness.  
**"Okay", you say. "I'm sorry. Let's talk this out. I'm sure we can find a solution, building up our relationship new from the ground. Let's forget about all of this and be friends, okay?" You hold out your hand and try a smile.**  
"I'll see you on the battlefield then", he says without emotion and cuts your head off.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Sometimes the AI did not know what to respond. At the beginning I played it out as if the other person wasn't answering or as if nothing happened. In later chapters for a while I rewrote my last prompt in that case. Afterwards I figured out that I could just press return to let the AI retry.


	2. Chapter 2

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Sam tries to find out what this is all about and becomes God. Kinda.

**After you died again, with somehow less confusion then before, you find yourself again at a completely new place.** You see a huge wall made out of iron and stone and several buildings, destroyed and in ruins. The dark sky is lit by a pale moon above you, covering this place in cold blue light.  
 **You remember how Megatron had asked for your help and wonder what's the reason you're here. Also you wonder if this is the battlefield the creature talked about. You had suspected that creature to be Megatron, but you're not sure anymore. You go closer to the buildings and search for hints about what kind of place this was.**  
You find a destroyed sign that says 'kindergarten'. You don't get it.  
You hear a scream and turn around to see a group of Decepticons in the distance, running towards you.  
 **You hide in the ruins of the buildings, hoping the Decepticons didn't see you.** A few moments later they run past you.  
 **You wait in your hideout until their steps fade in the distance, then carefully you come out and search the ruins for more clues.**  
An hour later you find the remains of a small, bloody bundle of wires and metal, it's core shattered to pieces. You stare at it in confusion.  
 **You don't dare to touch the glowing liquid that resembles the blood of the metal creature it once was, yet you cannot help but to feel sorry for it. You grab a stick to turn that bundle, to see if you can find an insignia on it.** You don't find any, but when you turn it around, you see something else.  
Hidden underneath that bundle was a small tape-recorder.  
 **You check if the tape-recorder is functional and whether there is a tape inside.** You find one, but it has been chewed through. You shake it and find that it has been recorded over already.  
 **You look for some duct-tape to fix the tape.** After ten minutes you give up and decide to give it a try without the duct-tape.  
You push the play button and hold the recorder to your ear. You hear...  
 **... only the noises of the tape-recorder, because it cannot play the chewed through tape, stupid.**  
But wait a moment... you hear something else. You turn the volume of the tape up, and hear something like a scream in the distance.  
 **You walk away from the building site, searching for the scream.  
It's coming from somewhere on the open field where you see a dark silhouette in the night. You push yourself close to the wall, so you can get nearer and have a look without it or them seeing you.**  
You walk to the edge of the building and see a young girl. She is naked, with a pale skin and long white hair. She has long black wings, but otherwise she is very human-like.  
 **You hide behind the corner of the building and have a careful peek to see what she is doing.** She walks around a small rock, and you hear her sobbing.  
You wonder if she is trapped and can't move from there.  
 **You have pity with her, so you decide to walk to her to speak to her. Though the thought of her completely naked makes your blood boil and you pretend not to see anything below her chin.**  
"Hello", you say, trying to be polite.  
Her head quickly turns towards you. She stares at you for a second, then her eyes move away, as she tries to hide her nudity.  
 **"Sorry, I ... I'm not looking, really." You hold out your hands before you to shield your own look from her. "I just heard you screaming and wanted to ask if everything is alright or if I can help."**  
"Why would you help me? Aren't you one of them?"  
"One of who?" You wonder what she means.  
 **"I'm new to this area" you try to explain. "And about that helping part. Well, that's just what I do. My Mom told be to always be kind and helpful, especially towards girls. If everyone helps each other out, the world will be a better place, she always says."  
You give her a friendly smile.**  
She looks away from you and at the ground and after lowering her head for a moment, she gives you a quick glance.  
 **Patiently you wait for her to make a decision, to accept your help or to decline it, whatever she wants.**  
She looks at you again, straight into your eyes and you hold your breath.  
"Will... You help me getting my dress back?"  
You nod. "Of course I will."  
 **You try to remember if you have seen anything between the ruins that she could wear as clothes in the meantime. "Where did you lose it?" you ask.**  
"Over there, in the middle of the ruins." she whispers and points to the destroyed kindergarten.  
 **"Okay, I will be right back." You are about to leave, when you get an idea. You take off your own shirt and hand it over to her. "Here, you can wear it until I return with your dress. The night is cold and stuff."**  
You are about to leave, but she takes your arm before you can do so. You are startled by her sudden closeness. "Why are you helping me?"  
 **"When I'm in trouble I also want others to help me" you explain. "I'm helping you. You help someone else. Someone else might help me. If we all help each other, the world will be a better place, don't you think so?"**  
She looks at you with her bright red eyes. "I don't know. I haven't seen the world."  
"Well then, let me show you the world." With those words, she releases your arm.  
 **"I'll be back as soon as possible." You go to the buildings to find the destroyed kindergarten.**  
It doesn't take long to reach it. The roof has fallen in and the walls have cracks all over, but after some searching you find the remains of a red dress which you stuff into your bag.  
 **You return to the girl to hand her the dress.**  
She looks at it without taking it from you. "I have to take of my clothes... and put on this?"  
"Yes, I'm afraid so."  
 **You start to shiver yourself from the cool night wind. "Well, I would really like to get my shirt back, but if you really want to keep it ... I don't see why, actually. The red dress suits you so much better than my dirty sweatshirt."**  
You watch as she slowly takes off your shirt. Her slim figure and the red dress make her look much older than what you think she really is.  
"I'm Ririh."  
"I'm Sam."  
 **You put your shirt back on. "Now that you're good again, would you mind to tell me what you are and where you're coming from?" You point to her black wings.**  
"I'm a fallen angel."  
You make a wry face. "Well, angels are often depicted with wings. I just thought that you're a kind of fairy." You laugh a bit.  
 **You hope you didn't offend her. "Eh, nevermind. Well, as an angel, you probably have knowledge that humans do not have? May I ask a question?"**  
"You just did."  
"Oh. Right. So, um... Where do babies come from?"  
She looks at you for a long time as if she is trying to make sure that she should tell you.  
 **You laugh, indicating you were just kidding. "Sorry, my humor is not for everyone I guess. My actual question is: What can I as a human do that an intelligent robot cannot do? Because one of them, Megatron is his name, asked for my help, but he doesn't say what I'm supposed to do. This really puzzles me."**  
She looks at you with a sad expression. "You should help him."  
"Why?"  
"You have to make a choice."  
Ririh disappears in the darkness.  
"Wait..."  
 **You look totally disappointed at the place where she had just stand a second ago. Again you didn't get an answer, so you have to continue your search. You decide to continue your way along of the wall of iron and stone.** You know, of course, that it is not the smartest way to go, because if something dangerous is out there, it will spot you long before you can spot it.  
 **You look around for the next patch of vegetation where you can continue on your way without being instantly seen.** You spot one that looks sufficiently thick to give you sufficient cover and are taking your first steps towards it, when you hear something behind you.  
You turn around but do not see anything except the way you came.  
 **Frightenet you run to the bushes to hide.** While you are in the middle of it, you realize that this was a really stupid idea. If something had been following you, it could have caught you while you were running towards the bushes.  
 **Well, you are not known for intelligent decisions anyway and you don't see a better option. You hide in the bushes and look out from the hideout to see if there was something following you.**  
You do not see anything and the silence is broken by just the rustling of leaves in the wind. Your feeling of unease, however, does not disappear.  
 **Maybe it's something invisible, you think. You stay in the bushes and keep watching your surroundings.** You also look for a way to distract whatever might be out there without being seen yourself.  
You see the flash of a lighter not too far away from your position.  
 **Startled to jump backwards, but quickly catch yourself to not give away your location. If you were not already noticed, that is. You try to see who manipulated the lighter.**  
There is no one to be seen. The lighter lies there all alone in the middle of a square, so no one could have gone invisible.  
And then you see it.  
 **The lighter is lying in a small puddle which is being illuminated by the moonlight.** The water starts to move and swirl in a circle and then another one next to it. The very water is moving in a way that you never saw something like that before. And then the circle becomes a spiral and then back into a circle.  
 **You stare at it, not really comprehending what you see.** You see more of these circles and spirals made up of water and they all are moving in a synchronized, mesmerizing dance.  
 **Slowly you creep out of your hideout to get closer to the water, to get a better glance on what is going on.**  
The circles and spirals are getting bigger and bigger. They now span the entire square and they glow a bright blue now.  
 **You saw such bright blue glowing liquid before: Energon, the energy source of the Transformers. But you never saw it behaving like this.** It looks as if the liquid is not just glowing, it is also flowing and moving. It's like a river, but water does not move like this.  
 **You wonder if it behaves like this because of the lighter. You see if there is a way how you could reach the lighter without touching the Energon. You carefully move around the strange liquid and search for a way to get to your destination.**  
You see that there are stones on the edge of the square, which you can use to get onto the other side.  
 **You jump over the stones to the lighter.**  
The moment your foot touches the square, you see that it was not a good idea.  
Just next to you a spiral of bright blue Energon is formed and it comes right at you.  
 **You scream in surprise and jump aside.** You try to get away from the square, but more and more of these spirals and circles are formed under you and they all come at you. You jump and barely evade them.  
 **Instead of trying to escape, now you rush to grab the lighter instead.** You do not see why this device made the liquid behave like this, but there must be a way to stop it.  
You fall down on your knees next to lighter and grab it.  
 **You hold up the lighter as if to use it as a shield against the spirals.  
The moment you see one coming close to you, you use the lighter and ...**  
... nothing happens. The liquid is not even flickering or anything similar.  
The spirals keep on circling you.  
 **You congratulate yourself for the most stupid plan of the day. With a scream you roll around to dodge the approaching spiral.** This is a bad idea, because it pushes you towards another one. You try to get away from them and in the process you knock over into the puddle of glowing Energon.  
 **You scream when the highly energetic liquid burns into your flesh.** You swim around in it since you are afraid of getting completely submerged.  
You fail to get out of it, because more and more of the spirals are created, pushing you into other parts of the puddle.  
 **You raise one hand out of the puddle and your flesh has taken on a glowing blue, totally inhuman color. This doesn't look healthy.**  
Soon, your entire body is glowing and your appearance looks like a black skeleton.  
The blue light emitted by your body is too much for you to bear and you fall into unconsciousness.  
 **But whatever Megatron's plan is with you, it is not over yet. Again you wake up in a completely different place. You're about sure that he wants to tell you something with all that world-jumping, but you still have no idea what it is.**  
You are in a room that looks like the inside of a computer. There are multiple white, hexagonal tiles on the floor, walls and ceiling and they seem to be illuminated by some unknown source of light.  
 **You look down on your body.** It is still the black skeleton like it was before.  
"Why does he want to show me all of this?"  
 **How creepy. Still you hold the lighter tightly in your right hand.**  
"Maybe this is a dream. If it is, I hope I can wake up from it soon."  
 **You look closer around in the room. You look for an exit or another clue about what this all is about.**  
There is another blue glowing puddle on the floor. You suspect that it could have something to do with you being here.  
 **Traumatized from your last incident with a blue glowing puddle you decide to stay as far away from it as possible.  
You think it's a good idea to look around the room and find another clue.** Maybe you have to do something with this puddle, maybe there is another one somewhere or maybe you have to interact with something else.  
 **You try to use the lighter to make a small flame. It works, but it also makes something else happen.**  
Several hexagonal tiles on the ceiling begin to open up and some kind of... tentacles start to come out of them.  
 **You scream in surprise and erase the flame. You jump to the wall, trying to avoid the tentacles.** They are very long and they appear to be able to move completely on their own.  
They start to come at you and you... you have to do something!  
 **You try to trick the tentacles into reaching into the puddle.** You try to make them think that you are one of their own, but it does not work out very well for you.  
They manage to grab you and pull you into the puddle.  
 **"No, not again" you think when the burning pain hits your body again.**  
This time is different however.  
You are still aware that you are in a video game, you just happen to be stuck in your avatar.  
"At least it's better then being dead"  
 **Now you have an idea what this is all about. Megatron shows you what it's like to be stuck in a video game. He needs your understanding before he can tell you what he needs your help for. It has something to do with the video games, what humans can do and he as a robot cannot.**  
You haven't played any games in a long time, but you're going to have to look into this glitch the next time you are in the real world.  
 **You try to open up the game's menu, so you can exit this world or at least load another state of it.**  
"You have found a hidden feature in this game. Your mind is powerful, but you are still limited" the voice of Megatron tells you.  
 **Ah, so he wants you to control video games for him. He needs you with unlimited power, but you are restricted to the rules of the games. Except if you had ... the power of cheating! But you have no idea how to do it, so first you're using the game's menu to leave your trap in the puddle.**  
You are back in the normal, empty void. You feel as if you haven't been here in a long time.  
 **You figure that the void is the place when no game is loaded. You look around to see if someone else is here.** Maybe someone who is also trapped? You have to know how many people are in the same situation as you are.  
Suddenly, you hear a voice from behind.  
"Ah, I caught you"  
 **Somehow you expect to see Megatron here, but he's probably outside and controls this place, watching you in the void. That would explain a lot.**  
You turn around to see a... dragon?  
You have no idea how that is possible. It looks as if it is made out of metal, but not like any you have ever seen.  
 **"Who are you" you ask.**  
"I am the Overlord. You are now the lord of this domain" the dragon answers.  
 **"What do you mean?"**  
The dragon looks at you a bit angry and then tells you to look around.  
 **You look around.** You don't see anything, but the void.  
 **You look harder around.** You try to find something, you don't know what exactly, but something.  
 **Then you think you understand. "Are you saying that this void is my domain?" you ask the dragon.**  
"Exactly. This is your world and you can do with it whatever you want. Or rather, however I want you to do with it."  
The dragon now looks at you a bit confused.  
 **"Okay, cool. So what can I do?" You decide to start with something simple. You try to summon a white sphere.** You concentrate a bit and suddenly a small white ball is hanging in the air, maintaining a steady position next to you.  
"Nice" the dragon comments "The humans never figured that one out".  
 **You're excited. You try to summon a red pyramid next.** It appears a bit closer. "I guess I control size by how I feel?" You ask. "Interesting, keep going" the dragon remarks.  
You concentrate again and try to summon a yellow cube.  
 **Lifeless things seem to be easy. You summon a canary.** Except it isn't alive. It just lays there. "I can make things, but I can't make them alive" You say to yourself as the dragon tells you that you need to practice a little more.  
 **You let the items disappear: the sphere, the pyramid, the cube and the dead canary** Then you try to fill the void with ten orange cubes.  
Once again, you feel satisfied. The dragon tells you he is going to leave you alone for a little while to explore your powers.  
 **You summon a sky, to replace the darkness of the void by a bright skyblue.** You feel as if you belong here. Everything is yours and you can do whatever you want with it.  
"I am the lord of the domain!" You laugh.  
You wait for the dragon to return...  
 **You summon an ocean to fill the domain below you.** You make plants and animals to live in it. After about ten minutes, your domain looks very different. You feel as if you have come a long way from being able to only produce lifeless objects.  
 **You summon an island made of white sand in the middle of the ocean.** You sit there, at one end of the island and concentrate again. You concentrate on changing the color of your skin to green, like your shirt.  
Your skin tingles a bit, but it changes color nevertheless.  
 **You look at your green arms, which are still thin as a skeleton. Not good. You give yourself back your old shape as Sam the human boy.** You concentrate again and find yourself bigger, stronger and tougher.  
You feel full of energy! The dragon has returned. He sits at the other end of the island and smiles at you.  
"Good job!"  
 **You're totally excited and proud about your powers, but soon you start to wonder. Megatron said this was a video game. The dragon called this your domain. "Does that mean that none if this is real?" you wonder.**  
"Yes and no." The dragon tries to explain.  
 **You ask the dragon for more explanations.** He tells you that your powers are coming from the video game console itself. This is why it suddenly stopped working. When it broke, it created a power surge throughout the whole house which released you from the spell.  
 **You don't remember any of that. "When did that happen?" you wonder.**  
"It broke five days ago" the dragon tells you.  
"Five days?" you say "But... How could I still be here then?"  
The dragon looks at you a bit terrified.  
 **Five days. You do the math. Five days was before he bought his new car which turned out to be an alien robot. It was before all of this happened, before he met Megatron, before he gave him the Allspark. Suddenly you jump up in a sudden realization: "Nothing of what I remember of the last couple of days has ever happened, am I right?"** The dragon doesn't answer, but instead takes off his human disguise. You see the alien robot you saw in the garage last time, with one difference: this one has a scar over his right eye.  
 **"Bumblebee" you call the yellow robot and step forward to touch his face, to make sure he's real this time. "What's going on with me?"  
Bumblebee doesn't answer.** He looks at you with a gaze that's both terrified and angry. "Am I stuck in here?" you plead "Is this my punishment for giving away the AllSpark?"  
 **"It was a test to see if we can trust you", Bumblebee explains and backs off from your hand. "We needed to make sure you wouldn't betray us when we give you the Allspark to take care of. Then Megatron killed you. We told you he was not to be trusted."**  
"But I saw myself die." You wonder.  
 **"Don't you understand?" Bumblebee points to the world around them. "This is a video game. You can die infinite times here and you will still return."**  
"Infinite..." You start to understand. Then you realize something else: "I died five days ago?"  
Bumblebee nods.  
"What is today's date?"  
 **You swallow. Sadness fills your chest when you think how you will never see your parents again. Well, at least not your real parents. You could still summon them in your domain, but they wouldn't be your real parents. "Now what happens with me?" you ask. "Will I stay here forever? Will I be immortal in this domain of mine?"**  
"Hardly", Bumblebee laughs. "If you stay here too long, you will die. You need to leave every once in a while to recharge."  
You feel a bit of hope.  
 **Recharge? But you weren't a machine, were you? "But where would I go for recharge?" you ask. "And how would I do that?"**  
"There are two ways", the Transformers explain.  
 **"The first one is to visit a lord of another domain to share some of their charge with you", Bumblebee explains.** "This way you wouldn't die. But it would shorten their lifespan. You could choose to become their servant."  
 **"The other way is to travel to the Top Level Domain, the source of all of our powers, and to directly grab some energy from there" he continues his explanation.** "This way, you would not only not shorten anyone's lifespan, but you would also get more energy. But nobody knows where the Top Level Domain is."  
You have so many questions.  
 **And suddenly it hit you. Megatron told you that he needed your help and that he was dying. "Is that why Megatron asked me for help? He's running out of energy and doesn't know where to recharge?" you ask.  
Bumblebee doesn't answer. But his silence speaks louder than words.** "We're not even capable of instantaneously travelling through the different domains", he says sadly.  
 **"But I can travel through the domains? Because I'm human?" You wonder.**  
"Yes. But that ability will probably fade, just like your memory will fade", Bumblebee explains. "I'm sorry. I'd wish I could help you more."  
You wonder what's happening outside.  
 **"Can you help me preserve my memory and my ability to travel domains?" you ask him. "Then I can help all of you with recharging."**  
The Transformer shakes his head. "I'm sorry", he says. "This is a video game. The only way the players can affect the world now is by playing.  
 **Suddenly you get an idea. You summon a notebook and a pen and you start to write down the things you know. "See?" you ask Bumblebee. "In this way I can preserve my memory and refresh it in case I forget."** Then you start drawing a map of the different domains you visited. "I can try to find the Top-Level Domain. And then..."  
 **"... then we will all be living happily ever after." You don't think of anything wiser to say. "Maybe afterwards you all can get me outside or something, that would be great. How does that sound?"**  
"I suppose that can work", Bumblebee admits. "But you still have to finish the quest, or else we will all die.  
"I don't think that will be a problem.  
 **You ask Bumblebee: "Now, what can you tell me about the Top-Level Domain? How can I find it?"**  
Bumblebee thinks for a while, then answers: "There are three pointers. The first one is the easiest to notice. The other two are harder to find."  
 **"How do I find those pointers? How do they look like?" you ask.**  
"You'll know it when you see it. Just keep looking for landmarks."  
"Landmarks?  
 **You write down everything Bumblebee tells you on the notebook. "Tell me about those landmarks."  
But Bumblebee stays silent. You understand that it was everything hew knew about the pointers. "Okay, I will look out for strange looking landmarks and then I will see where they take me."**  
"You must hurry. My death is getting closer and closer."  
"I will!" you promise.  
Bumblebee smiles and then he suddenly grows quiet again.  
 **"Don't worry" you say. "Even if it wasn't real, you will always be my first car. I won't let you down."** You pat his hood for comfort, then you jump on the hood. After a few seconds, you jump off it. You walk to the front of the car and open the bonnet.  
 **His motor looks futuristic, just like you remember it, but its colors got dull. It's as if you could see his weakness from his depleting energon supply. You should really start your quest now. You decide to close the bonnet again and start walking around, looking for landmarks.**


	3. Chapter 3

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Sam goes on his quest to find the three pointers that will lead him to the Top-Level Domain.

You don't have to wait long before you find one. A huge, silver pole appears on the horizon.  
 **You wave Bumblebee goodbye, then you head for the silver pole. It comes out of the beach's sand, although you didn't made it. How strange. This must be one of the pointers Bumblebee told you about.**  
You walk around the silver pole until you find a button. You press it and suddenly the silver pole gets shorter, then it turns and opens a door in the sand. This is getting more interesting.  
 **You go through the door.** A long hallway appears in front of you. It has multiple doors alongside it, and at the end of it you can see another door. You approach the first door on your right and peak in.  
 **The room is full of crates. You look into one of them and see blocks of wax. "What is this place?" you ask yourself.** You hear a scream and the sound of chains coming from the next room. You rush in and find a girl strapped to a table, with only her head free.  
 **Oh no, you need to help her! "Are you alright? Don't worry, I'm a friend" you tell her to calm her down. Then you check how to open the straps.**  
"Hurry up!" She screams as another scream is heard from the room next to you.  
You finally release her and she hugs you tight. "Oh, thank you", she pants.  
 **"What is this place?" you ask her. "Who is screaming in the next room?"**  
"This is a torturing room", she explains as she gets off you. "We are in one of the evilest's dungeons. I'm sure you have heard about Skeletor before." You nod slowly.  
 **Torturing? Skeletor? Not in your domain, you think. "Follow me, I will take you out" you tell the girl. Quietly you sneak to the next room and peak through the keyhole.** You see a man with a hooded robe and a face mask, torturing another girl that you didn't know was here.  
 **You summon some chains that appear on the walls. The chains grab the man with the hooded robe and chain him to the wall, holding him tightly.  
Now you step into the room and release the other girl, keeping an eye on the hooded figure at the wall.**  
He struggles to get out of the chains, but they are fixed firmly to the wall. "Let us go now." You command. He refuses to talk and instead just screams at you.  
 **You look at his face mask.** It's a demonic skull. You have heard of him before. This must be Skeletor.  
 **"This is my domain" you tell him. "I forbid you to torture anyone in my domain ever again. Do you understand?"**  
He just snarls at you in anger. You walk out of the room and close the door. Now, you need to find a way out of this place. "Follow me" you tell the other girl.  
 **You start to check out the other doors at the long hallway in hope to find an exit, but the rooms are rather boring. One is a kitchen, one contains books and folders, another one more crates.** "Let's try the next floor" the other girl suggests as you go back to the elevator.  
You push the button on the elevator's wall and the doors opens immediately. "It's so easy!"  
 **You check out the buttons of the elevator. Well, your final destination is the Top-Level Domain, so you decide to press the button to the uppermost floor.**  
"There are 35 floors, did you know that?" the other girl asks you. You look at her in suprise.  
 **"I hope I won't miss out on anything" you say, but you don't have the time to search through all of them. Patiently you wait for the elevator to make its way up to level 35.** Soon, the doors of the elevator open and you step out.  
"These are amazing rooms!" your companion cries out in enthusiasm.  
You and Glitterbell check out the rooms on this floor.  
 **"Have you ever heard of the Top-Level Domain?" you ask Glitterbell while you're checking out a room that turns out to be a toilet.**  
"The Top-Level Domain? Of course I've heard about it! Everyone has heard of it!" she says, "But only a few knows where it is."  
 **"Well, if you could tell me anything that would help me find it, that would be great" you say.**  
"I don't know much, but I know someone who might. His name is Wart, and he's the court jester. He knows everything that happens in the castle.  
 **"Sounds great" you say. "Please take me to him."**  
"Ok, hold on" Glitterbell says. Then she disappears into thin air.  
 **You stare at the place where Glitterbell disappeared and decide to wait for a while for her return.** After waiting for about ten minutes, she finally comes back. "Follow me" she says.  
You follow her through a maze of corridors until you reach an odd door.  
 **You knock at the odd door.** "Come in" a voice from inside says, "It's open".  
You open the door and find yourself in a round room. A man with a jester costume is sitting at a desk.  
 **"Hello, you are Wart? My name is Sam" you introduce yourself and give him a smile. "I'm on a quest to find the Top-Level Domain."**  
"I see. I'm Wart. So what do you want from me?" he asks.  
"Well, I have heard that you know everything that happens in the castle."  
"You heard right"  
 **"I'm on a quest to find the Top-Level Domain" you repeat. "Can you tell me how I can find it? A friend of mine told me I need to look out for three pointers and the first one brought me here" you summarize your story.**  
"The Top-level Domain? You won't find it so easily, young man" Wart says, "I suggest you should forget about it".  
 **"But ... but ..." your lower lip shakes. "A lot of people will die, I mean an entire robot species will die if I don't find it. I cannot give up just yet."**  
"Calm down, boy" Wart stands up from his chair, "let me think about it for a while." He looks at you in suprise.  
 **You fight down your disappointment. "Okay." You take out your notebook and start to draw a picture of Bumblebee while you wait for Wart to finish thinking. Your picture is just an ugly stick figure, but then you use your powers of the lord of this domain to turn it into a beautiful drawing that shows Bumblebee as the yellow camaro at the beach at sunset.**  
"Looking good" Wart says while you are drawing, "but that's not what I was gonna ask you."  
"What do you mean?  
 **"Well, I can draw another one if you like" you say and start to scribble the posture of Megatron rising how above you when he reaches for the Allspark you hold out to him. You also turn this drawing into a beautiful piece of art where Megatron looks breathtakingly impressive.**  
"What I meant" Wart says again, "is that I've deciphered your code. Well, at least for the first pointer. It reads 'The first pointer is the thirteenth floor'."  
 **"Oh, that's cool. You mean the thirteenth floor of this building?" You take some notes on your notebook. "How did you decipher it?"  
The man stays silent. You are not sure if he doesn't know or if he doesn't want to tell you how he did it. "I mean, if you would tell me then it could decipher the codes for the other two pointers, but no pressure" you add.**  
"Don't worry, I can do the rest myself. I'm good at riddles. They're my thing." He says with a wink.  
 **"Thanks for your help. Is there anything I can do for you in return?" you ask.**  
"Yes, there is" he says with a cheeky grin, "you can get the hell out of my office."  
You exit the room and find that Glitterbell has gone.  
 **You go back to the elevator and press the button to the thirteenth floor.** The door closes and the elevator starts moving. Suddenly, it makes a loud groaning noise and it stops moving. The lights flicker and go out, then the emergency lights turn on.  
 **You use your powers over this domain to switch the main power back on and to let the elevator move again.** Then you exit the elevator and find yourself in a hallway. You walk down the hall and find a set of double doors at the end of it.  
 **You open the double doors.** You find yourself in a large study. The walls are covered with book shelves. You look at the shelves and see that they contain lots of old books.  
You decide to have a closer look at the books.  
 **You sigh at the sight of such many books. It might take years to find the pointer here. You need some system. Maybe there is something odd about the books that give you a hint, so you start by checking out their backs.**  
You look through many, many books. You find that the ones by Charles Dickens are the most fun to read, but they don't contain anything helpful.  
 **No no, that is not helpful at all. Pointer, pointer, how do you find a pointer here? Pointers are used in programming. You're in a world of video games after all. You search for books about programming.**  
You look through the shelves again. This time you pay attention to the spines of the books. You see a pattern in them, and a few of the shelves have a line going through the middle of them.  
 **You check out where the line is going.** It turns out that it leads to a bookshelf in the corner of the room. You go over to it and look at the spines of the books on it. You see an empty space between two books.  
 **Oh no, you sigh in disappointment. You pray silently that it's not the one book you need that is missing from this place. You look closer at the empty space.** It's a little too wide for it to be a coincidence. You take out the book that is on the other side of the space between the two books. You find something is hidden in the spine of that book.  
 **You open the book's spine.** Lying between it's pages is a small piece of paper.  
On it is a strange symbol. It looks like two arrows chasing each other's tails.  
 **You think that this could be the pointer. Or a clue to find the pointer. How could you tell? You put that piece of paper into your notebook. Then you search the rest of the bookshelf.**  
You find nothing else. You also look at all the other bookshelves in the room, but you don't find any more pointers.  
 **You decide to make contact with Megatron. With your domain lord powers you summon a door that leads directly to him. Carefully you knock at that door.  
But it stays silent. You open the door.** You find yourself back in the elevator. This time you choose to go down.  
You find yourself in a new room. It has two doors. One says GAME OVER and the other one says CONTINUE.  
 **You figure that you cannot reach Megatron in this way, probably because he's located in another domain. You go through the door that says CONTINUE.**  
The door leads into a large room with lots of video games. You recognize a couple of the old consoles, like the Nintendo Entertainment System and the Sega Genesis. Most of the others you've never even seen before though.  
 **You search for Belgaroth Attacks - the Empire of the Forsaken.** It's not here.  
 **You go back to the two doors.** The door to CONTINUE is still open, so you can go through that again.  
But maybe there is another way.  
 **You are insecure if you should do it. Carefully you open the door to GAME OVER a bit and peak inside.** You can't see anything. It's pitch dark inside there.  
You go back to the two doors. The door to CONTINUE is still open, so you can go through that again.  
 **You summon a torch and light into the GAME OVER room.**  
The room is entirely black. You can't see anything at all. You step inside the room and close the door after you. Now that you have closed the door, it is pitch dark.  
 **You summon a torch that is on fire.** The light it gives is very bright, but not enough to illuminate the whole room. You wonder if you should summon more.  
Carefully you step into the room and close the door behind you.  
 **You check out the floor below your feet.** It seems to be solid in this place. You go further into the room.  
Suddenly a high-pitched laugh fills the room. An unnatural chill runs down your spine. You don't feel safe here.  
 **You hold out the torch in front of you in the direction of the laugh and make some steps backwards towards the door.**  
Then the laugh is suddenly behind you. You quickly turn around, but you see nothing but darkness.  
"Have you come to play with us?" Your blood turns cold when you hear that voice behind you.  
 **"I'm the lord of this domain" you say, trying to sound self-conscious. "Show yourself."**  
You hear a soft chuckle behind you. "You are not the lord of this domain" that unreal voice says. "You can't even see me." Then you feel something hot and wet running down your back.  
 **You squeek frightened and jump. "Yes, I am, see!" You summon a fireball that hovers in the room, illuminating it completely.** You turn around. You don't see anything, just the empty room.  
"You have no idea how much power you give away for free." You hear that voice inside your head again.  
 **You grab to your back, touch the wetness on your back and bring your hand in front of your eyes to check out what liquid it is.** It is blood. Somehow that creature managed to make its voice travel through your mind and into your body, making your own organs bleed.  
 **"I'm not playing your game." You tell the darkness.**  
You run to the door. You put your hand on the doorknob. You try to turn it, but it doesn't move.  
"This is my domain." You hear that voice say.  
 **You freeze in the realization, that at some point you must have left your domain without noticing. "Whoops, my bad" you say. "I'm fairly new to this domain stuff business. Sorry for intruding. I will just leave and not bother you again."**  
The silence that follows feels ominous. You know you have about 10 seconds before something bad happens.  
You quickly try to come up with a solution. You look at the keyhole of the door.  
 **You summon a key that fits into the keyhole to open the door.**  
The key simultaneously materializes and opens the door. You are free to go.  
That creature won't stop you now that you are in it's domain. It is smarter than that.  
 **You leave through the door and go through the other door labeled CONTINUE.**  
"Oh, this looks interesting."  
A room filled with mannequins. They are all covered in leather and they wear different faces, all of which look scared.  
 **The mannequins don't look that interesting. You look round for another exit.**  
You find that this room has four doors, two on each side, each with a sign above it.  
 **Read the signs above each door.**  
Behind the first door is a note. It says:  
THE COTTAGE BY THE LAKE  
It would be lovely to live in a cottage by the lake. You could paint and live in quiet solitude.  
 **Read the sign above the second door.**  
Behind the second door is a note. It says:  
THE CASTLE BY THE MOAT  
It would be lovely to live in a castle by the moat.  
 **Read the sign above the third door.**  
Behind the third door is a note. It says:  
THE IGLOO IN THE DESERT  
It would be lovely to live in an igloo in the desert.  
Read the sign above the fourth door.  
 **Behind the forth door is a note. It says:  
THE SPIRAL MOUNTAIN NEAR THE RUSTY LAKE  
Now that sounds interesting. You could go and explore a mountain.  
You know that spiral mountain and the rusty lake, they are places on Cybertron! Also they are weird landmarks and maybe indicate the second pointer. You step through the fourth door.**


	4. Chapter 4

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Sams quest for the second pointers leads him to Cybertron where he meets an old friend.

You stand on the edge of a spiral mountain. The mountain seems to endlessly turn into itself, never ending, like a circle that's become trapped in a larger circle.  
 **You look down from the spiral mountain to see a lake of rust color that spreads to the horizon, where you see more mountains. Nearby on the spiral mountain some mechanical goats with red eyes climb around. What a fascinating planet.**  
You take a closer look at the goats, but they are unable to be engaged in conversation. You will need to find something else to talk to.  
Examine the rest of the planet.  
 **You walk around the mountain until you spot some metal houses in the distance - a village where Transformers live. You go on the long way down the mountain and head to the village.**  
You find the village to be very small. In fact, there are only two inhabitants: a large yellow truck and a little purple hatchback car.  
 **The two inhabitants are busy. The two cars just arrive from some place, transform to their bipedal modes and drop piles of metal scrap on the ground. Then they start to discuss the repairing of the destroyed houses they point to from time to time. When you come close, the two robots stop their conversation, lower their battle visors and watch you on alert to see what you're up to.**  
You attempt to engage them in conversation.  
 **"Hello, I'm Sam." You give them a friendly smile and they relax when they see that you're friendly, lifting their battle visors. "Who are you" you ask.**  
"I'm Long Haul." he says in a low voice.  
"I'm Hightower, nice to meet you." she says in a high voice.  
 **"What happened to your village" you ask.**  
"We were attacked by a giant robot who threw boulders at us. He destroyed our houses. Luckily we survived the massacre." Hightower explains.  
"Giant robot?  
 **"You are new to this place, huh?" Long Haul asks. "Yes, a giant robot called Metroplex. We're in the middle of a civil war, you know?" "Actually I wasn't participating" Hightower adds. "But since I was living in this village with Long Haul, who is a Decepticon ... well, you go with them, you hang with them, like they say."**  
"Who are the Decepticons?" you ask.  
"We are." Hightower says proudly. "The Autobots are good guys. We're bad guys.  
 **"Oh cool, I know you guys" you say. "How's Megatron doing? The last time I met him he wasn't feeling so great. Didn't stop him from humiliating me, though."**  
"Really? Well, he's dead now. Optimus Prime killed him." Long Haul says.  
"Oh, that's too bad." You lie.  
 **So that's why he didn't answer when you tried to summon him a while ago. You don't feel bad for him, but you feel bad for yourself, because you didn't complete your quest in time. Well, but you can save others instead. "Well, I am searching for some kind of pointer, you don't happen to have one on your planet and know where I can find it, do you? Or at least someone who could know something about it?"**  
"A pointer?" Hightower asks.  
"Yeah, uhm, like a big arrow made out of metal or something." You try to explain. "You mean like that one?"  
 **You show them the piece of paper with the two arrows that bite each others tail. "I got one that looks like this. Have you seen anything similar?"**  
"Yeah, we have seen something like this before!" Hightower says. "The Decepticons know where a big arrow shaped metal is! If you go there, the Autobots are sure to attack you!"  
 **Well, you're sure you can talk the Autobots out of it, so you are not worried. "Where do I find it?" you ask.**  
"You just go straight from here, then left and right at the end of the street." Long Haul explains.  
"OK, that's easy. Thanks for your help!"  
 **Long Haul points to a street that leads out of the village and out on the shiny metal plane to somewhere on the horizon. You don't see where it ends. "Well", you add a question, "How far away is it? I mean, is it reachable for my human mobility?" Those guys can transform into cars. For them traveling long distances is no problem.**  
"It's two... three... many hours by foot." Long Haul says.  
"OK, no problem. Where exactly can I find it?"  
 **"When you followed my directions" Long Haul replies, "you cannot miss it. The arrow is about ten steps long and located on the center square of an Autobot village."  
You thank him for his help and wish them both good luck with their repair. Then you go on your way to follow the street.**  
The village didn't have a name. But it was close to a town called Polyhex so you are sure you can find it again from there. You walk for what you think is about three hours.  
 **There you spot another village in the distance, which is also made from metal houses. The area around the village is bumpy. Some creepy looking mechanical snails creep over the ground, munching on metal pieces. The animals are guarded by a bipedal robot - this looks like a farming village to you. Also the houses look much better than in the last village, only one of them is damaged and several colorful Autobots are busy repairing it.**  
You see a big metal arrow on one of the houses. You walk over to the arrow and touch the tip of it. Then you realize what it is for.  
 **The arrow can rotate freely. It points to the north. However, Cybertron is a transforming planet and the North can be in one place on one day and in another place the next day, however Primus wants it to be. The Autobots won't allow you to take it, because they would lose this precious piece of navigation. Besides, it's much too big and heavy for you to take it.**  
Last time you met a red Autobot by the name of Jazz. He had a smooth talk and was really helpful. Hopefully he is around again so you can try to persuade him to give or lend you the arrow.  
 **You walk to the Autobots that are busy repairing the house and ask a blue one where you can find Jazz. He turns to you while he still holds a metal plate in place, so the others can continue fixing it to the wall.** "Jazz is around, but I doubt that he will want to see you."  
 **"Why?" you ask. "It's really important that I meet him."**  
"What do you want from him?" the blue one asks again.  
 **"I'm on a quest to find the Top-Level Domain" you answer vaguely.** "I need the arrow that points to it. It's really important for all Autobots and I'm willing to pay a lot for it."  
 **The blue one laughs out loud. "Do we look like we need any money? We're struck my a Civil War. You cannot spend money anywhere, so it's worth nothing. Besides, the Top-Level Domain is just a legend. It doesn't exist. Go home, human and play with your toys."**  
The others start to laugh, too. You realize that this wasn't such a great idea after all. You turn around and walk away.  
 **You search all houses for Jazz and ask the inhabitants for him when someone wonders what you're doing here.** They had to have heard of your exploits in the past. They should be happy that you want to talk to their leader.  
"Let me ask Prime", one of them says while you are still in hearing distance.  
 **You agree and wait for him to ask Prime, while you wonder which Prime he's talking about. Is it Optimus Prime or is he talking about Jazz? Did Jazz get the title of a Prime in the meantime?**  
You get the answer sooner than you thought. The one talking to Prime is Brawn, the big yellow Autobot.  
"We should absolutely not help the small human"  
 **"Let me talk to Jazz and explain it to him" you suggest. "Then he can decide if he wants to help me."**  
You don't know if you should explain what it's all about to Brawn, though.  
 **"Prime is busy" Brawl snarls. "If you don't tell him beforehand what you want from him, he doesn't have time for you."**  
"Fine!" you get angry because of that snarl. "I'll ask him myself!"  
You enter the house Brawn was guarding.  
 **In the house there is Jazz, discussing some plans with other Autobots while they look on a holographic map of the nearby area. Brawl rushes in after you to take you out, but in this moment Jazz lifts his head and sees you. He recognizes you.**  
"Sam!" he shouts. "Come in, come in!" The others clear the room immediately and Brawn closes the door behind you. You're alone with Jazz, who comes up to you.  
 **"Hey, good to see you, how are you doing?" You shake Jazz's hand for a greeting. "I see you got the title of a Prime in the meantime. Congratulations."  
Jazz lowers his head in sadness. "Yes, unfortunately the war deprives us of our leaders one after the other. I don't think I deserve that title, it was just a necessity. Though I'm doing as best as I can and nobody complains, so it's not that bad after all."** He leads you to a table with two chairs. "Please, have a sit."  
You sit down and ask the question that brings you here: "Do you know where the Top-Level Domain is?"  
 **"I've heard rumors about it. Legends. Not sure if they are true" he replies. "Why are you asking?"**  
"I'm on a quest to find it. It's vital for the survival of the human race."  
"Really?" Jazz looks at you, then he looks out of the window and becoms silent.  
 **"What is the matter?" you ask, wondering what he doesn't want to tell you.**  
"The Domain is a very powerful place and only the worthy may enter it. Only they may take the power there. Everyone else will be destroyed."  
"That's great, I'm worthy! I need energy!"  
 **You swallow down your fear. "Well, I will do my best to be worthy and I still have enough time to prepare. Please, I need the pointers. I heard the arrow on the roof outside is one of them, which can lead me to the Top-Level Domain."**  
"Yes, the arrow is one of them. So you've been there."  
"It lead to here, so I suppose it belongs to you. Can you give it to me?  
 **Jazz replies: "We need it as orientation to calibrate our navigation systems each morning to where the North pole currently is. Sorry, it's too valueable for us. I cannot give it to you without a proper replacement."**  
You didn't expect that answer. You go back to the question if you are worthy or not. "What do I have to do?  
 **"We need a replacement, another compass that points to North" Jazz answers. "I don't know where to get one. The small ones we had before mostly got lost in the war. Maybe you will be lucky in one of the abandoned houses if the haven't been scavenged yet or maybe at least you can find a magnetic needle to rebuild one."**  
You ask which way you have to go to find such a needle.  
"That way, to the East." He points over your shoulder.  
 **"One more question" you add. "When I brought you a compass, how could I take the pointer with me? That arrow is too huge for me to carry." "Oh Sam, you forget we are transforming machines." Jazz smiles at you. "And most of our technologies can transform, too. Don't worry about that now, just bring me the needle."**  
The conversation ends here, and you get up. "Good luck, Sam," Jazz says when you turn around to the door. "I hope we will see each other again."  
 **That's indeed not to be granted in these times of civil war. You decide to return to the village of the two Decepticons to search in the destroyed houses there for a needle.**  
You walk through the city without any problems. You have done that often yesterday and everyone here knows you're a friend of the Decepticons. But when you enter the village, you sense something is wrong.  
 **The two former inhabitants Long Haul and Hightower have disappeared. They're nowhere to be seen. The village is eerie quiet. You approach one of the houses.** The door is open. You go in and find nothing of value there. But as you leave the house, you nearly stumble over a dead body. It's the youngling from yesterday!  
 **That poor thing. Maybe, if you finish your quest it will also end the Civil War. You continue searching through the houses for a magnetic needle.** You are incredibly lucky. You find the tool on the windowsill of a house that looks less devastated from the outside.  
 **The next step is to bring the needle back to Jazz.  
You return to the other village to meet Jazz in his house again.** You knock but you get no answer. You call out for him but the house seems to be empty.  
 **You enter and search it.** The whole place looks the way you left it: destroyed and abandoned.  
 **You ask the other villagers where Jazz is.** Nobody knows. You begin to worry and go back to the other village. Maybe he is there.  
You return to the house where you talked to him before.  
 **Brawn snarls at you: "Jazz is out for a mission. You have to wait for him to return."**  
You know that's not true, for you have just left the house in the other village and Jazz was not to be found there. You have a bad feeling about this.  
 **"Did he say when he will be back?" you want to know from Brawn.**  
"No," he says and turns away from you.  
You didn't like that conversation. You have the strong impression that Brawn is not telling you the whole truth. He might even know where Jazz is.  
 **While you wait for Jazz to return, you offer your help to the Autobots who are busy repairing the house.** They are grateful for the help and you spend a couple of hours among them. It is evening by that time. Still there is no sign of the leader.  
 **You engage your new Autobot friends in a conversation, slowly bringing the topic to Jazz and where he could be.** To your surprise, not a single one of them has a good word for him. He is belittled for being an old fool who does not know the meaning of the word "planning"  
 **Hearing them speak like this about your friend makes you sad. You try to defend him by pointing out that Jazz is new to the leadership position, but he fulfills his job as best as he can. "Have you tried to tell him what you don't like about his methods of leadership?" you ask carefully.**  
The reaction you get is rather outspoken. You nearly get your head blown off by the angry Autobot.  
"Why should I?" he snaps at you.  
 **"Hey, calm down, I was just trying to help" you defend yourself. "No need to get mad at me. We humans like to talk out our problems, it's called diplomacy."**  
The Autobot shuts down and turns away from you. You give up on the conversation.  
 **You enter Jazz' house to see if you can find a plan that tells you where he could have went to.** You get lucky and find a map in the drawer of his desk. A red circle is round on that map. It says "Cit W."  
 **You try to figure out what "Cit W." means while you look around for any notes about his latest briefings.** You find some interesting information on his computer. The notes mention the "Cit W." as an abbreviation for "The City of Steel". It is the Decepticon headquarters.  
 **A cold shiver runs down your spine. Is Jazz on a mission to the Decepticon headquarters? But that would be a suicide mission. Maybe the other Autobots were right to question Jazz' leadership qualities. Why would he take such a risk?** Maybe you should stop him.

] You stay and investigate further ] or ] you try to find and stop him.  
 **You stay and investigate further.**  
You decide to stay and find out more about the Decepticons. The next few days are spent scouting the area. The camp is well defended, with many guards watching for possible intruders.  
 **You decide that the best way to help Jazz is to complete your mission. You wait until night, then you sneak out to the pointer, the big metal arrow on the house. You give it a command to shrink to the size of your hand, so you can take it with you, then you put the magnetic needle at the arrow's former place.**  
You head back to the village. The next morning you see that the villagers have noticed the disappearance of the arrow. When they find it, they will notice the needle and act on it, hopefully.  
 **Now that you got your second pointer it's time to leave this world to find the last one. You check the map in Jazz' room to find the next space haven. Then you go on your way to get to that place.**  
After spending a few days jumping from world to world you come across the last pointer. It's in the middle of some sort of military base.  
 **You have a close look on the military base to figure out what to expect from it.** It seems that lots of people are coming and going through a big gate. From your hiding place you counted at least a dozen coming and going. They are wearing a blue uniform and they seem to have no weapons at all.  
 **You search for the locker room and steal a blue uniform that you put on. This way you can move around the military base without raising suspicion.** Once you are ready you decide to wait until night fall, maybe that's the best time to move around their anyway.  
 **While you wait for the night you overhear talking people to collect information about the pointer you're looking for.** They seem to be impressed and talk about how glad they are that their military is protecting such an important world.  
When night comes, you open the door of the abandoned house you're in and sneak around the military base.  
 **You head directly to the location of the pointer while carefully looking into each corridor before you pass, to make sure no-one sees you.** There are lots of people around but none of them seem to notice you.  
Once you arrive at the location you find a big square metal plate with the word "press" on it.  
 **You look around, but nobody watches you, so you press the square metal plate.** The plate makes a "click" sound and than a small hole with a diameter of about 5 centimeters appears. You look inside but all you can see is some kind of mechanism.  
 **You take out your notebook and check if you have any notes or drawings that tell you something about that mechanism.** You find a letter that the professor wrote to you detailing the instructions on how to use the pointer on this world. The letter reads:  
To use this pointer, you must find a plate with the word "press"  
 **You understand that this pointer is the small hole, which you cannot take, but you don't mind. You take out the other two pointers: the piece of paper with the two arrows that bite each others tail on it, and the metal arrow that points to North. Now you need to figure out how to combine them to open the way to the Top-Level Domain.  
You try to fit the metal arrow into the hole.** It doesn't fit of course. But it gives you an idea: You take out the map that shows all the traversed worlds and look for the North of this world.  
 **You place the arrow beside that hole, so it points to the North of this world.** You try to fit the arrow into the hole, but it still doesn't fit. You turn the arrow a little bit to the left and...  
A small click is heard and the opening mechanism starts to work.  
 **You look at the piece of paper with the two arrows and have the idea that it means that the arrow needs to be turned around. You keep turning the arrow around to further manipulate the opening mechanism.** When you feel that it won't open any further in this direction, you turn the arrow back to its original position and continue turning it to the left again.  
The mechanism stops working again.  
 **You repeat that process several times. Then, when you got the feeling that you opened it wide enough, you look around to find the way to the Top-Level Domain you opened with this.** But you can't find anything.  
You think about what to do and decide that the arrow is pointing to the North of this world.  
 **So you think that you will find the open way at the North of this world. You grab your pointers, sneak out of the military base and head to the North.**  
You walk across the military base until you reach its Northern border. But you don't find what you're looking for. You return to the place where the arrow was, but it's not there anymore.  
 **Anyway, now you have your map to find the North. You leave the military base, heading North.**  
You walk for several weeks to reach the North. But when you're close enough to see clearly, you can't find anything out of the ordinary. You try to remember the way back to where the arrow was, but you got lost in this icy desert.  
 **You consult the map on your notebook to find the way to the North.** When you look up again, you can't see anything in this white desert. You walk in one direction for a few minutes, but since you cannot find the sun anywhere, you don't know if you moved at all.  
 **You dig yourself a cave into the snow to wait for the weather to change and for the sun to come out.** But the sun doesn't come out and it doesn't stop snowing. You are slowly losing feeling in your body, but you don't care anymore. You are going to die here either way.  
 **You're using your domain lord powers to summon a campfire to keep you warm.** But there is only so much you can do with your powers. You're running out of options...  
 **You start to do jumping jacks to keep yourself warm.** Then you run in place to increase your heartbeat and consume your body heat. But it gets tiresome very quickly.  
The white desert still doesn't change to blue. You're tired and hungry... **You decide to go back on your way and to return next time better prepared for that snow.** But you can't find the path that you created a few minutes ago. It's like it disappeared into nothing.  
You start to panic as you are surrounded by white desert.  
 **You consult your notebook for a hint that can help you.** You consult the map that shows all the worlds and their related coordinates to find your current location.  
But as you look at the map, you can't recognize anything.  
 **You shout on top of your lungs for someone nearby to come and help you.** But you can't hear yourself scream over the snowfall.  
 **You take out the arrow that points North and go where its tip points to.** You are lucky that you found something familiar.  
This journey is hopeless and you can't go on any further...  
 **But you have come too far to give up just yet. You force yourself to keep going. Your destination is probably nearby.**  
You take a deep breath and keep your eyes peeled for anything that looks remotely like a map room.  
The arrow starts to point towards a specific direction. You follow it carefully.  
 **Through the deep snow you follow the direction the arrow points to, until you're so close that the arrow moves noticeably when you make a step to the side. The North must be very close.**  
You are now standing in front of a huge wall made of pure Ice.  
 **You look for a door or another entrance nearby.** But the wall is seamless.  
The arrow is now so close to the wall that it looks like it is stuck.  
 **You follow the arrow from behind.** It appears to be coming out of a barely visible panel. You push it and you hear a click sound from the wall.  
You look for a door, but there isn't one.  
 **You start to wipe off the snow from the ice wall from where you heard that clicking noise.** And that's when you find it: A hidden button. You push it and the ice wall slides to the side, revealing... The arrow room!  
The arrow is indeed coming out of a panel.  
 **You look around for the entrance to the Top-Level Domain in the arrow room.** There is... nothing?  
 **You step back and start patting the wall for a hidden button or something similar.** But all you find is cold ice.  
 **You check where the arrows are pointing to, seeing if this could be a puzzle or something.** This could also very well be a dead end!  
After a few minutes of fruitless searching, you give up. You must have overlooked something.  
 **There mus be something, anything. You sit down to think hard about all of this. The three pointers were supposed to show you the way to the Top-Level Domain and they brough you to this room. So how can you get from here to the Top-Level-Domain?  
You've got it! Maybe the arrows indicate which wall you have to push or something like that.** You try pushing the walls to see if one of them opens a hidden door or something similar, but nothing happens.  
 **You try to push the arrows and walls in different orders to see if there is any pattern that makes anything happen.** But you just get tired and your feet get cold standing on the ice for so long.  
You give it up for today. Maybe you'll have more luck tomorrow.  
 **You push the arrow on the panel to close the wall, so you will be protected in this room from the cold outside.** You then get into your sleeping bag and fall asleep right away.  
NOTE: You may choose to explore further, go to sleep or do anything you like.  
 **In your sleep you dream about arrows that float around you as if they tried to tell you something.** They start to form new patterns, but just as you think you've figured out their message, they change again and will continue to do so until you wake up.  
You wake up inside the arrow room.  
 **You take out your notebook to compare your maps of the different domains with the arrows on the walls. This may give you a hint of what to do next.  
You look at the arrow that points to the room with the panel and notice something: The arrows seem to point at different panels in each of the walls.  
You try to read from the arrows the order in which you need to push the panels.  
You push the panels in an order that makes sense to you, but nothing happens.  
You look at the arrows again and think about the order in which you saw them pointing.** Maybe this isn't the right way after all.  
You try again, but you're not getting anywhere with it.  
 **You wish Bumblebee was here to help you with this puzzle. You try to summon a phone to call him.  
But nothing happens. You wish strongly for Bumblebee to hear your calling.  
But still nothing happens. You start crying in your frustration.**  
You can only hope that Bumblebee finds you before the scientists from the university do.  
You spend another day confused by this puzzle, seemingly getting nowhere. You wish you had a knife so you could write on the walls or something.  
You start feeling very hungry, but nothing grows in this ice world. There are no plants or animals to be found.  
 **You decide to spend another day working on that puzzle, before you have to leave this place in time to get back to civilization before you starve.**  
You spend that day doing your best to get somewhere with the arrows on the walls, but still nothing happens.  
 **You give up and go to sleep.** In the morning you have that dream again...  
You wake up, and find that your bag is missing. After a thorough search you find it behind the panel, where the arrow was pointing to when you found this place.  
 **You leave the arrow room and heed back to civilisation.** You decided to follow the arrows once again.  
You follow the arrows through the ice tunnel they lead you to and find yourself in a place you have been many times before.  
The university.  
 **You shake off the remains of snow and go to a vending machine to grab s snack.** You choose a package of chocolate cookies.  
You go to a bench in the university courtyard and open up your bag of cookies. To your surprise, there is a cookie missing. You count them again to make sure.  
 **You are a bit upset about that cheating, but you eat the cookies anway. They are delicious.**  
You feel strangely compelled to take another bag of cookies, but you resist the temptation. You don't want to turn into a 'cookie monster'.  
You hear footsteps and quickly look around. You see a girl run into one of the university buildings.  
Why do you feel like you've seen her before?  
 **You heed to the library and search for a book that can help you with that arrow puzzle.**  
It seems like you have seen the book you find yourself holding in a dream... or maybe it was reality?  
Or both, actually. Everything seems so mixed up nowadays...  
 **You search the library for the book about arrows you saw in your dream.** You find it after a few minutes.  
You look at the pictures of arrows in it and something clicks in your mind. You head back to the arrow room.  
 **You compare the arrows on the walls with the pictures in the book and find a perfect match.**  
You look around for the panel that is part of that arrow and push it.  
You are greeted by the same message as before: what will you take with you into the next room?  
You have a feeling that it is time to part ways with some objects you've been carrying around.  
 **You put down all stuff except the notebook and your pen and look for the entrance to the Top-Level Domain.**  
You find a strange hole in the wall and look inside. It is too dark to see anything there, but you feel a current of warm air coming out of it.  
 **You push yourself through the hole.**  
You find yourself in a very, very bright place. You are blinded by the sheer amount of light there.  
You look around through squinted eyes and see that you are in some sort of tube.  
 **You wonder if this is the Top-Level Domain or the way to it. You try to see anything outside of the tube.  
You continue your way through the tube.** You see a small red dot on the opposite wall of the tube and are intrigued. **You go through the tube until you reach that small red dot.**  
You are surprised to find yourself at some sort of control panel.  
 **You look closely at the control panel.** You see a bunch of different colored buttons. You see a small note next to the buttons. It reads: To reach the Top-Level Domain, find the right combination to open the door to it.  
 **Checkout the buttons' colors to see if there is a pattern behind them.**  
You look closely at the buttons and compare their colors to the notes in the book you found on arrows.  
It seems like this is the exact same puzzle!  
 **You press the buttons in the order as indicated by the notes in the book.**  
And it opens!  
You are greeted by a bright light. You cover your eyes with your hands and look through the cracks between your fingers.  
The Top-Level Domain is a very bright place.


	5. Chapter 5

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Sam scouts the Top-Level Domain.

**You look around.** You see a small table and some chairs. There are three doors to choose from.  
You open the first door to your right and find yourself in a room with the walls made of screens.  
 **You look at the screens.** Each screen displays a message.  
The first screen reads:  
Hello and welcome to the Top-Level Domain!  
This is the control room of the city. You can do anything you want here!  
 **"I want to find a way to share the energy from this place with the Transformers so they can recharge" you say out aloud and check the other screens for clues on how to do this.**  
Halfway through the screens you find one with a live video of a street in the Transformers' city. You can control the screen from here!  
 **You use the live video to look around in the city.** You are about to give up when you see something moving on one of the screens. It looks like a small dot, but it is definitely moving. You keep an eye on that one screen and wait for something to happen...  
 **You keep watching the moving dot with full attention.** It seems to be moving in a straight line, not stopping at all. Then it suddenly disappears. You try to look for it again but you can't find it anywhere.  
You wait patiently for something to happen...  
 **You check out the third screen.** It's a map of the city with the location of the moving dot marked on it. It seems to lead to a place in between two skyscrapers. You can also see that the moving dot is an actual person!  
 **You control the second screen to give you a better view on that person.** The person seems to be stuck between the two buildings. You can also see an ambulance next to that person.  
You control the first screen to show the same map as on the second screen.  
 **You zoom in on that person, trying to see who that is.**  
It seems to be a security guard. You wonder what he is doing there all alone...  
You check the screens again for more information.  
 **You try to find out what kind of place the Top-Level Domain is. Bumblebee said that no-one knows where the Top-Level Domain is, yet you see Transformers, humanoid robots living in this city. It's a bright and peaceful place. The light tells you that this place is full of energy. You wonder why no-one else knows about it. Why don't the citizens of this place share this information with the people in the other domains?**  
It is overwhelming to see a second city in the sky, one that you didn't even know existed until you looked through that book...  
You look away from the screens for a moment and look at the sky.  
 **The roof of this room is made of glass, so you can see the sky through the roof. The sky has a beautiful golden tint. Above you in the distance you see a city floating in the sky. Between the skyscrapers you see some Transformers in their jet modes flying around.** You see no sign of any conflict down there. You see a group of three robots playing some sort of ball game together. There are lush gardens surrounding the skyscrapers and parks between them too.  
 **You look around for a way to reach the city in the sky.**  
You can see a small helicopter parked on top of the roof. There are some robots working on it.  
You can also see a jet-pack on the floor.  
 **You leave the room to find a way to the roof.**  
You walk down a flight of stairs and find yourself in a large hall. There are doors all around the place.  
 **You take out your notebook and draw a map of this place.** There are two sets of double doors to your right and to your left. There is a single door at the front and at the back too. The roof seems to have several helicopter pads on it.  
 **You check each door for one that leads to the roof.**  
You push the double doors to your right and find that they open up into a small room. There is a single glass door in the middle of it. You can't go any further with the doors.  
 **You go back upstairs to find a way to the roof somewhere else.**  
You walk down the other stairs to find yourself in another large hall. There are doors all around the place.  
You walk into the room and head towards the glass door at the other end of it.  
 **You look through the glass door.** There is a helicopter on the roof.  
You decide to check the rest of the rooms before climbing onto the helicopter.  
You walk into the room and find a staircase, leading up to God knows what.  
 **You go to the helicopter on the roof. You talk to the robots who are working on it. "Hello, I'm Sam" you introduce yourself.** "I would like to go for a ride in this helicopter."  
You wait patiently...  
"Ugh... he's not a very friendly robot," one of them says.  
 **"Of course, because I'm a human" you say. "I was searching through the entire universe, at least that's how it seemed to me, to find the Top-Level Domain." You tell them that you need some energy from here to recharge your friends. You explain that you need the helicopter to reach the city floating in the sky, because you're not able to fly yourself.**  
"Wait... you're that human we've heard about! We need to call the police," the robot says.  
"What's going on here? What are you doing, Sam?" another one asks.  
 **"Wait, you know me?" you wonder. "How?"**  
They explain that two and a half hours ago, a robot came to this very room to report you. He said he met you at the desk. There were also two other robots with him.  
 **You wait for them to continue with their explanation.**  
"We've called the police. They said they would come here immediately," one of them says.  
 **"What have I done?" you wonder.** "Why would the police need to arrest me?"  
"Exactly, what have you done?" a new voice says. You turn around to see two humans standing behind you.  
 **You stare at the two newcomers.** One is a man and the other a woman. The man has short black hair and light skin. He is wearing a blue t-shirt and jeans. The woman has long curly brown hair and tanned skin.  
 **"Mom? Dad?" you wonder in surprise.** The last time you saw them was ten years ago. They had driven off without you, leaving you behind at a rest stop.  
"You are not my mom, and you are not my dad," the man says.  
 **You blink at them in the blinding light. No, your mind played a trick on you. You have never seen these people before. "Who are you?" you ask instead?**  
The two humans stare at you. "We don't have time for this," the woman says to the man. "Give it to him straight, I'll go check on the others."  
 **You watch the man to see what he's supposed to give to you.** He hands you a map. You look at it. It shows the entire island, and there are names on it.  
 **"What's going on here?" you wonder, looking from the map to the man. "Why did you give this to me?"**  
He stares at you for quite some time. "I don't know how to explain this," he says. "We need you to save our island from a terrible fate."  
"What is this?"  
 **"You opened the door to the Top-Level Domain" the man explains. "The energy of this place is leaking out too fast to replace itself. If nobody closes the door in time this place will run dark."**  
"What does this have to do with me?" you ask. "I don't know how to fix it."  
"You're the only one who can," the man says.  
 **"Because you were the one who opened it when you came here," the man adds. "You know where the door is. Just close it the same way you opened it." "But how can I get the energy from here to the domains of my friends and how can I get back when I close the door?" you ask.** "You'll figure it out when you get there," the man says.  
 **"Okay." You roll your eyes. "And then you won't arrest me when I do, okay?"**  
"I won't arrest you." The man nods his head quickly. "Just do it quick!"  
You start to walk out of the room.  
You walk up the staircase and into the helicopter on the roof.  
 **"Can I borrow this helicopter after I closed the door?" you ask the robots, who are still busy repairing it. "I have to go somewhere."**  
"You are not the same human we talked to before, are you?" one of them says. "He was a lot friendlier."  
"It's the same one,"  
 **You press your hands to your head in annoyance. "Look, I have come a long way to get to the Top-Level Domain. I just want to help my friends, but you just threatened me with calling the police. I'm seriously running out of patience here."**  
"You are a very rude person." One of the robots stands up. He's about twice your size. "We will not let you in the helicopter until you apologize."  
"There you go again with this."  
 **You apologize humbly.** "I'm sorry for my rudeness, sir."  
"You should be," the robot says, shaking his head. "But I accept your apology."  
You get into the helicopter.  
 **You fly to the entrance of the Top-Level Domain.**  
"Now that I'm here, how do I get to your friends?" you ask the children.  
"Go inside the building and turn right," one of them says.  
 **You leave the helicopter and go inside the building, looking for the way where you came from.** When you find it, you run down to it and see a large, spherical machine there.  
You look at the machine. It has a large, blue screen with the words, "Save Energy" flashing on it. Next to it is a keyboard that is hooked up to it.  
 **You check out the screen for a way to close the energy leak.** You press a blue button that says, "Stop Leak." The machine starts to make a slow hissing sound. Then it stops and the screen says, "Error-I don't like you."  
 **"What ..." You stare at the screen in disbelieve. Then you use the keyboard to type in: "Please stop leak"**  
The machine hisses again, but this time it makes a quick beeping sound. The screen says, "I like you."  
"Yes!" You jump up and down in glee.  
 **You watch the screen for messages that indicate the closing of the leak.** After a few minutes, the screen flashes to a picture of an open door.  
There's a message under the door that reads: "The door is open. You can go home now."  
 **"Um, thanks", you tell the screen. "But I need to save the Transformers first before I can go home."**  
The screen blinks off. You start to feel nervous about the situation. Then you notice that the door is, in fact, open. You walk through it and see a large room filled with boxes.  
 **You look into the boxes.** There are weapons and ammunition in them. You take some guns for yourself.  
"It's a room full of weapons!" you yell to the screen. "You've got to be kidding me!"  
 **You leave the room and close the door.** All you have to do now is find a way to save the Transformers now. You look around and see a button on the wall. It says, "To control everything."  
 **You press the button - not.**  
You hear a loud explosion coming from the room with the boxes. You run back to it. It's on fire.  
You look in horror at all the boxes. They're all on fire.  
 **You run back to the machine and type into the keyboard: "Please set off fire alarm. Please call firefighters. Please tell everyone to leave the building. Thanks, but I must leave now, good luck, bye."**  
The screen flashes: "Goodbye."  
You run out of the room and start to run away from the building. When you get far enough away, you feel the ground shake.  
 **You turn around to see that the whole building exploded. Oh no, the entrance and the exit to the Top-Level Domain were destroyed!**  
Then you hear another explosion coming from the inside of the building. It's the room with all the weapons. It's going to destroy the entire structure!  
You start to run away from the building.  
 **You run to your helicoper and fly off.**  
When you look back, you see the entire building explode. It's engulfed in flames. The city is alight with explosion now. Fire is everywhere. This is terrible!  
 **You grab the radio set of your helicopter to call for help.** When you look back, the city has now completely disappeared into flames.  
You must have been daydreaming again because you can't see anything but flames. Flames and smoke everywhere! **You fly with your helicopter out of the city into save distance.** But when you reach an area that isn't fiery, you see buildings collapsing and it's only a matter of time before your helicopter burns.  
You have to think quick.  
 **You fly up in order to escape the flames.** But you know, the flames are going to reach high into the air. The heat will be terrible.  
But what can you do? You have to escape.  
 **You check your notebook for any hint what to do now.**  
The last note in your notebook says, "Goodbye".  
Then a helicopter falls down from the sky. You look at it in wonder as it falls into the fiery abyss.  
 **Then you get an idea. You turn around looking for a water tower nearby to shoot it with your helicopter guns, so the water will extinguish the fire.**  
You see a water tower.  
"This is my only chance now." you think to yourself and try to hit the water tower with your guns.  
Success!  
 **Tons of water break out of the water tower, flooding the streets and erasing the flames on its way.**  
But the water "floods" on the wrong side of town as well. The city has no chance to survive this.  
Two cities are completely destroyed in the process.  
 **You fly out of the city in your helicopter. On the way out you look for survivors to rescue them and to take them with you out of the city. It's the least you can do.**  
You pick the people up one by one.  
You fly out of the city and to a new start somewhere else.  
Your helicopter runs out of gas somewhere in the dessert.  
 **You leave the helicopter standing. It's of no use now. You check out the people you saved from the city.** You count them. There are exactly 4.  
The same number of domains the Top-Level Domain could connect to.  
You find that this was no coincidence...  
 **"By the way, I'm Sam" you introduce yourself to the 4 people.**  
"I'm Fireman".  
"My name is Watergirl".  
"I'm GreenBiker"  
"And I'm RedRider".  
 **You ask what kind of place the Top-Level Domain is. "Are there more cities nearby you can go to? Or do you even have family there?"**  
They're all silent...  
Then RedRider tells you that they don't know what's there.  
 **You don't understand. "What does it mean? Did you never leave the city? There must be something outside the city, right?"**  
RedRider looks down. She's crying and doesn't answer. Watergirl answers for her instead: "The city is the world". Then she starts to cry as well.  
You don't understand what they mean.  
 **"Are you saying the city was the Top-Level Domain? Are you saying the fire destroyed the only place in the universe with endless energy supply?" you ask in panic.**  
The four of them just burst into tears.  
"Ehm, can it be rebuilt somehow?" you try.  
RedRider shakes her head and sniffs.  
 **"Well, you can live in my domain instead" you suggest. "It's still new and there's not much there, but I made a nice little island there. What do you think? Just for a while until we found a new home for you?"**  
The group agrees.  
"Perfect. Now, which way is the sun setting?" you ask.  
They show you the direction and you start walking towards your island. The others follow you...  
 **You don't know exactly how this domain-traveling works, but after a while you reach the ocean and after you walked some miles through the ocean you reach the island of your domain. You recognize the trees and the animals that live there, so you know it's yours.**  
"It's lovely here" says Watergirl. "I've never seen such green trees before."  
"Yeah, it's really nice" you agree and start building a campfire.  
 **You light up the campfire with your powers to impress your guests. Then you summon some barbecue and hand the food to your guests. "Bon appetit!" you say.**  
"That's amazing" says Fireman when he sees you control the fire with your thoughts. "Can all super-humans do that?"  
"Nope, just me!" you wink.  
 **"I can do it, because I'm the lord of this domain" you explain. "And I can do it just here. But I can do anything I want here." You start to summon some huts for your guests to live in.**  
"But you can't do that in the other domains, right?" asks Fireman.  
"Exactly!" you say and start building a wall around your island.  
Your guests look at you confused.  
 **You realize that the wall was a stupid idea, now you cannot enjoy the view of the ocean anymore, so you remove the wall.**  
"It's not fair to the other domains!" you complain.  
You are really angry now. The others cannot understand your power and respect you as the ruler of your domain.  
 **However, you want to be a friendly ruler, so you pull yourself together and sit down at the campfire with your guests. "Let's talk about the Top-Level Domain, if you don't mind" you suggest. "You probably know more about it than me. Where did it get it's energy from?"**  
"I think it was nuclear at first. But then it started to get energy from the sun" explains Fireman.  
 **That explains the bright light there, you remember. Before you can ask more questions, you hear some steps and someone approaches the group. You turn around to see a yellow robot comes close - Bumblebee. You are so surprised that you drop a piece of sausage out of your mouth.**  
"What are you doing here?" you ask.  
"I live here now" answers the yellow robot and pets your head with his hand.  
"You are called Bumblebee, right?" asks Watergirl.  
 **You get up to greet your old friend. "Hi, you want to join us?" You point at an empty space near the campfire for Bumblebee to sit down and look around for something to offer him. You don't think robots eat human food, but you don't have anything else, so you offer him a steak just out of politeness.**  
"Thanks" answers Bumblebee and eats the steak in three bites.  
 **You don't dare to tell Bumblebee that the Top-Level Domain burned down, so you quickly change the topic. "How have you been doing?" you ask him.**  
"Great!" he answers. "I finally have enough energy to transform and walk around."  
 **"Oh, yeah?" you wonder. "When did you get that energy?"**  
"I don't know. I just woke up one day and I have it."  
"Do you know who gave it to you?"  
"No idea, my memory is still missing parts"  
 **Oh, maybe now that you destroyed the Top-Level Domain, maybe now the energy leaks directly to all other domains? You ask Bumblebee: "What about the other Transformers? Did they get energy, too?"**  
"I believe most of them did. I have seen many of them transform recently. But a few of them seem to be still without energy"  
 **You cannot suppress a smile. It looks like despite all your trouble your quest was still successful. "That's great to hear" you say. Your look drifts away to the sparkling light on the ocean where the waves reflect the sunlight.**  
"It sure is great to see the ocean again" says Watergirl and enjoys the view.  
"It sure is" you agree and enjoy the company.


End file.
